Mike Grassi (son of Toby Grassi) - Shipmates and Soulmates

Note - Toby Grassi served aboard the USS Atlanta and after its loss served aboard the USS Nassau-CVE 16.

For most of my life, like many fathers and their sons, I can remember many occassions when my father and I were at-odds with one another. In fact, my father and I disagreed on alot of fronts. For one thing, he had one idea of what I should do with my life and I had another. A son spends many years trying to please his father and gain his father's acceptance. I spent my share of time doing just that.

My father had his first bout with heart disease in 1987. His health began to fail him at that time and he knew his life had been changed forever. While taking care of him during that time, I started thinking about how I wished we could connect in some way.

Back in the summer of 1995 I had a rare opportunity to share a wonderful experience of shipboard life with my father. Being a member of the USS Nassau (CVE 16)reunion committee, my father had asked the Captain of the latest USS Nassau (built in 1979 - LHA-4)if he'd come and speak at one of their reunions. The Captain accepted. A short time later the Captain called my dad to ask if he and other survivors of the original USS Nassau would like to visit his ship and sail on her from Norfolk to New York City. My father was thrilled and asked if he could take his son along. The Captain said "sure thing".

Now, I was very reluctant to make that trip. I'd just started a new job and would have to ask for a week off almost immediately. Also, the thought of spending 4 days and nights couped-up with my father in limited space didn't exactly appeal to me! I tried every way I could think to get around going. But something was telling me that I HAD to go.

We arrived in Norfolk on a perfectly sunny day after flying down from Rochester, NY. We made our way to the Naval base and to the Nassau. From that point on, something changed in my dad. He was transformed! He was transported to 1941 again and he was again a Seaman 2nd! We walked up the ramp on the ship and we both saluted the colors and asked for "permission to come aboard, sir"! I always wanted to do that!

From the moment we stepped aboard, my father and the other former sailors from Nassau were treated like royalty. They were part of a unique and heroic fraterity and civilians just don'tunderstand. I, too, was treated well, but you could tell and justafiably so, that the men of Nassau held these men up on a higher platform.

Listening to my father swap stories with his shipmates I could see that my father and the rest of the men went willingly to war. They were young, yes. But they were willing to risk their very lives for our very freedom and way of life. How can you ask for more? They were real heros, every one of them.

And my father's attitude toward me was different as well. I think for the first time my father saw me as another MAN, not just his son. He told me things from his childhood that he'd never shared with me before. We shared a stateroom and stayed up very late laughing and telling stories. I felt like I'd gone to sea with my best friend. It was as if God himself had placed us on an island out in the middle of the Atlantic and said "I have something special for you, so enjoy it because time is short".

On our last evening aboard we spent some time on fantail with my father's old shipmates and some of the young sailors from today's Nassau. They were all comparing notes about the ways they did things back in WWII aboard ship as opposed to now.

God moves in mysterious ways. He took my father to war, brought him home safely. I was born. And years later that very wartime experience was the bridge toward a final and inseparable bond between a father and his son. For the next three years, until his death, I think he was proud to call me "shipmate". It was mutual.....dad.